Cold Hard Truth, Vita Hasn't Been Given A Chance

Cinelinx - " This means less games like Uncharted: Golden Abyss and more games like Hot Line Miami. Supposedly the idea of “console like gameplay” that the Vita introduced is all wrong. With new generation of consoles people want more, and handhelds can’t keep up. Yet I have to disagree with that statement. There are plenty console games that can offer this same come-and-go experience without being toned down to arcadish cell phone style games. Here let’s list a few.

I agree with the author. The Vita is a great piece of hardware with horrible support. Sony doesn't even release proper games on the system. Making the Vita an accessory to the PS4 and focusing on indie content dilutes the systems identity further. At this point in time Sony might as well cancel the Vita and re-release the PSP.

I'm all for Japanese games but I would like some bigger Japanese games, Neptunia and Senran Kagura are o.k but the fanservice clearly alienates lots of people, it'll be better to have Japanese exclusive with better mainstream acceptance Exclusive Kingdom Hearts or Resident Evil titles like the 3DS has had

It can't really be helped. The rise of smartphones meant the writing was on the wall for handhelds, especially in the US. The 3DS is chugging along because of big names like Pokemon, and the Vita still sells well in Japan, but the smartphone juggernaut is just too much.

The Vita is selling well in some regions. At what point do developers including Sony support it properly? I love my Vita, I'm dissappointed in the games to this point. E3 didn't make me feel much better.

The vita has brought more new gameplay experiences to me than many AAA titles for other consoles. I'm talking Gravity Rush, Killzone Mercanry, tearaway, y's: memories of Celceta, LittleBigPlanet:Vita (Best LBP yet), Super Stardust, Persona golden, and more. Many of those games I've completed faster (out of desire to play) than many games for 360/ps3 in the last few years.

I think the Vita takes a lot of S*** for what all comes in the package. It's a stand alone console AND a compliment to the PS4, not one or the other like fanboys on each side try to make it out to be.

For people like me who have absolutely no interest in Japanese games, there's nothing that I want to play on the Vita except Uncharted: Golden Abyss and Killzone: Mercenary.

Sony has alreay said that they will not be investing in big budget AAA games on Vita any longer. This is a shame, because it was Sony's very own games like Socom: Fire Team Bravo, Syphon Filter, God of War, Gran Turismo, Killzone, Little Big Planet and others that helped make the PSP so popular.

To the people who think that the Vita will go on to be successful, you're as delusional as the Nintendo fanboys who think the WiiU is going become a successful console. I wish the Vita was better supported, but it is what it is. If you live to play indie games, then I suppose it's the handheld for you, but that is not what the original intention behind dual analogue sticks was supposed to be.

" At this point in time Sony might as well cancel the Vita and re-release the PSP."

And what continue to sell the system in a low market share % that to be blunt is no longer REALLY THAT VIABLE?

Call it Quitting the dedicated game handheld market, call it the Playstation Portable is a flop, what ever people want to call it, Sony is pretty much doing exactly what they need to do.Trying to etch out a small sliver of what ever is left of the dedicated Game system handheld market share after Nintendo takes the lions share is no longer Viable for Sony to keep spending into a gigantic Money Sink!

At least BY RELAUNCHING THE PLAYSTATION VITA Now as a Micro-Game Console Sony has a far better chance to salvage the PSVita as a platform than continue onto a dead end market share % other than Nintendo's Lion share holding mind share and Market share.

Call it quites or what ever, What Sony is doinging is making a play to indirectly compete like Apple, Google already do without even needing a dedicated Hanheld game system.

App store like "casual" investment returns on software sale's is far more enticing to 3rd party, thats why Sony is courting Indie developers heavy. the Playstation TV is going to be the main Indie developers "Console" to release their games on!

There are several good games on Vita however I love two specific games, Soul Sacrifice Delta and KillZone. Those two games look and play amazingly greater than standard Vita titles. When I play those two games it definitely feel like a console experience on the go. The Vita needs more ambitious titles like those two but no developer wants to take the chance on doing it. I say that if you make a great title, there should be no worries what so ever of it selling because a great game sells even on the lowest common denominator. Take a look at Nintendo Wii U with Raymon Legends, they delayed it to launch on all three consoles and it still sold more on the Wii U but also look at Nintendo first party titles they sell because they're great games. Devs really need to give the Vita a shot with awesome games.

The Vita can be an example of it too. When GOOD games release, a good majority of Vita owners buy it. Look at Assassins Creed or Killzone, they saw good percentages according to the Vita userbase, they just didn't move Vita units.

Then games like Call of Duty or Resistance release, nobody buys them, and publishers blame the userbase. No, it's the simple fact those games sucked and Vita users are not stupid.

If they would just properly port games to Vita like it was made for, more people would be interested. Instead publishers treat it like the ugly step sister to the 3DS and "port" games made for that over to Vita.....

Sony's finest piece of hardware was stabbed in the back by an uncaring marketing department.

A beautiful, gorgeous piece of technology ignored by the general public. A true crime against portable gaming.

I truly believe sony's indifference towards this amazing product stems from their dire financial problems. I also have reason to believe there may be talks to quietly kill the machine behind the scenes. (The lack of new retail games is one of those reasons along with some feelings I have after working around corporate buyers for many years.)

I really don't think it's as dire as that. The Vita is still selling well in Japan and in the west the current Vita install base has given the Vita a high attachment rate of games. That's making Sony money. I do not see them prematurely killing Vita. The sales in Japan would have to drop pretty low for that to happen.

I still don't understand Sony's choice to decrease first part support and put indies on the front. I have no problem with indies but I did not pay $200 dollars just to play indie games.

Yoshida thinks that Vita owners don't want cinematic and AAA experiences, but he couldn't be anymore wrong. I loved games like Killzone!

I also don't care for PSNow, remote play, or ports.. I want exclusive handheld games built from the ground up for the Vita. They have to take advantage of the hardware and they can't be found anywhere else. That is why I bought it, for experiences like that.

Listen while it is selling well in japan the install base for the system doesn't just revolve around that territory. There is other territories such as NA & EU that it needs to sell better and putting indie games on the forefront is not going to make it sell any better. The vita needs a whole entirely different marketing campaign that what it has because sony really messed up on the messaging. An secondly it needs AAA games built for vita. It's not that hard to do just look at nintendo, they're not dumping endless amounts of cash into the 3DS and it's still being successful.

The problem is none other than Sony themselves. Here they make an amazing device with so much potential yet they don't even try to make great games for it.

They expect to let third parties create games for it; which isn't a bad thing at all, but when Sony themselves don't give a crap of there own device, what incentive does that give to other devs to even consider making a game for it?

I do love all the great JRPGs that have been coming out so far. I already pre ordered One Piece Unlimited World RED which I could've done for my PS3 but I want to support the damn thing. Also preordered Tales of Hearts R which I can't wait to play. Disgaea is another one I can't wait to play.

All in all, I am happy with the Vita, but I do agree that the handheld hasn't been given its proper treatment.

People keep blaming tablets, but that doesn't mean Sony should suddenly stop supporting it with first party titles and put indies on the forefront. Look at Nintendo, even with the rising threat of tablet, they never came out and said "We're lowering our first part efforts on our handheld. Indies are now the future of the 3DS"

Sony could have honestly done more. They claim people don't want console experiences on handhelds yet Vita fans are pretty supportive of titles that do deliver those types of experiences. Look at how much Final Fantasy X HD sold.

Sony just can't keep pouring money into a device that doesn't see any return. It doesn't make sense, the best they can do is let other devs support it and foucs on smaller titles for the Vita. Not only that but have it used as a companion device to the PS4.

3DS is a different beast because Nintendo has been in the portable market for the longest time and not only that but a lot of the marketing towards their recent handhelds were geared towards a more casual audience. Nintendogs and those other Life games were super popular and propelled the DS to it's current status. They had a really good mixture of games and a huge back catalog thanks to backwards compatibility.

Sony's device was aimed more at hardcore gamers who like you said wanted console experiences on the go. Unfortunately there aren't many of those to make the Vita the success it should have been.

I think your comment below rings true much more than #7. It has a lot more to do with marketing, support, and creating a buzz than anything else at this point. Nintendo has shown already with the record sales of the 3DS that tablets and phones can essentially be a non-issue. At the height of the trendyness and novelty, 3DS was still breaking sales records. Also, check out the price point of the 3DS and how when they hit the sweet spot the sales went through the roof. The Vita is a GREAT handheld and I wish it a bright future.

In case you didn't know, Every first-party studio Sony owns is working on a PS4 title. The PS4 is outselling it's competitors 4:1 worldwide. What Sony needs to do is focus on improving Vita sales, since the PS4 is already doing great.

They can't just 'cancel' a system with an install base of 8.5 million people.

Its a hard reality to swallow. The problem with some indie games, is that they are to simplified gaming experiences. The Vita us capable of so much more. I'm all for indie titles. Some of the best games I played last year were from indie developers. Pixeljunk and runner 2 come to mind. With the Vitas ability to play PS3 and PS4 titles remotely I can see where it would be a waste of time to spend millions on developing similar titles on the platform. However, how come more developers, especially Sony, do not support this feature?

Sony needs to step up with the major titles if they want vita to become a hit but does anyone expect them to do this? Why fund another gta game if most vita owners probably have ps4 n will just use remote play to play GTA 5? This is what Sony is probably thinking and why I wont buy a vita since im never going to get a ps4. Ive tried having both consoles before and it never worked out n I have less time to play games now then I did before.

I absolutely love my Vita! Use it more than my PS4 and I have a backlog of games on the system. People need to stop acting like Triple A games are the only real games. A huge budget doesn't mean a great game, and most of the recent big budget games don't get as much play as the much maligned indie games I bought.

If they can't afford exclusive AAA on vita they should focus on ports of AAA games like borderlands 2 if loads games like this have Been ported let's say devil may cry collection perfect game for a handheld and special edition of vita with it it would sell like hotcakes and Vita's Salle's would pick up

Its not about trying to get a slight increase in market and mind share for the PSVita anymore, there really just no real growth outside of Nintendo. Sony understands this more than people are giving credit for.

Look it would be fantastic if there was a real reliable solid way for more growth for the dedicated game handheld from any other company outside of Nintendo but its really to be blunt, a lost cause..there is no real way to do it anymore , not with smartphones and Tablets having the main 3RD party development of the AAA publishers putting their games on smartphones and Tablets.

I mean just look at Nintendo even with all the large number of sale through numbers that Nintendo has, why would Rockstar game's, EA and other big publishers not put some of their best widely known franchises on the 3DS, i mean the 3DS's hardware the GPU is a PICA 200 with 6MB of Dedicated video ram and 128 MB of system ram, this was more than the orig. PSP

And we seen the orig. PSP get Vice city Stories, and the 3DS is set to sell enough to match or pass the DS. So why is Rockstar Games not putting GTA: San Andreas on the 3DS? its on Apple iOS and Android?

Thats the big point, you know this market has changed when a 1st priority communication device is getting a what was at one time a living room game console game but a dedicated game console Handheld is not getting that same game?

What the vita needs is a little more variety. It sells good in japan because they give it lots of support. Just look at the amount of RPG's the vita has. Sony needs to hit that consumer sweet spot and get some of their more well known studios to make some fresh takes on hit psp titles.

Psp sold like what? 70+ millions units? They need to bring some old psp exclusives back from the dead and that might jus push some of the old psp owners to upgrade to a vita

"They need to bring some old psp exclusives back from the dead and that might jus push some of the old psp owners to upgrade to a vita"

While i love the PSVita and i have one, i think its to be blunt too late, i think people are dwelling on the statement of Yoshida as the death knell of the PSVita..when its not the death of the PSVita as a platform.

The smartphone and Tablet market has Disrupted this part of the market, people would say what about the Nintendo 3DS's well think about this for a sec.

Again in total life time sell through of the game handhelds in a 10 year pd. in time the max total numbers is about 150 million units sold in roughly a 10 year point in time. thats about 23 million a year for a few years than that drops to 15 than 10 million and levels off about year 7 to 9 to the max of about 150 million LTD sold through number's pretty fantastic numbers right? yes

But smartphones are way above that now, in one sales quarter Sony is selling over 10 million xperia smartphones, while samsung is over 50 million a sales quarter! each of those smartphones has advanced GPU's inside of them that to be blunt ENABLE A MAINLY COMMUNICATION DEVICE TO RUN GAMES SUCH AS GTA: SAN Andreas!, Vice City, etc not a stripped out ver the real console ver. People say what about physical control's? thats why Bluetooth game pads are being in abundance.

Its not a matter of if the market was disrupted, it has been disrupted, unless you are Nintendo there really is no real growth for such a dedicated game handheld any more, So Sony moved the playstation Vita as a platform mainly to that of a Micro-Game console now. thus the Playstation TV!

OMFG..this again, Sony giving up on the PSVita, Sony does'nt care about the playstation Vita, maybe if we keep harking on this Sony will change its tune..

Ok if this will make the doom sayers feel better, Sony is killing the playstation Vita, OK feel better?

Now look at what Sony is doing with the Playstation Vita as a platform!

Playstation Vita "platform" Notice that people PSVita is more than just a freaking handheld! Playstation Vita is a Platform! Playstation TV is where the 1st party development is going! why because thats what the "majority" of gamer's wanted, "If we wanted to play watered down PS3 ports well i would just want to play it on a PS3 on a big screen"

So why do you think Sony is releasing the [email protected] playstation Vita as now a Micro game console?

Because thats what the majority told Sony they want! So they are going with what the majority wanted!

The fact that Playstation TV will now be the 1st priority Development platform for playstation portable game development teams from 1st party, the standard PSVita will still get the Game it will be a port of a playstation TV game for the playstation Vita, because the PSVita has the same chipset as the Playstation TV.